by Rinelle Grey
“A week at most,” Nerris said.
A week seemed suddenly very close. “I need to see Folly and Kerit every day, so I can monitor their health.”
She was pretty sure she heard Kerit give a sigh. Tyris though, just nodded. “Of course. Anything else?”
“No, that’s all. And if you have nothing else, I need to get back to work. I have a few mothers who need my attention.”
“Of course,” Tyris said promptly. “I think that’s all we have to discuss right now. We can’t do anything more until that engine is ready to go.”
Amelie thought that the subject was closed, so she was a little surprised when Tyris fell into step beside her just down the corridor. He didn’t say anything for a few moments, until they had left the briefing room behind.
“Dr Benton, I have another assignment for you, if you don’t mind.”
Amelie looked sideways at him. Why hadn’t he mentioned this at the meeting? Silly question, it was obvious he wanted to put the assignment to her privately. Her curiosity was piqued. “What is it?”
She wasn’t mistaken. Tyris looked decidedly uncomfortable. He didn’t hesitate though. “I need someone to find out more about Kugah. I know Kerit trusts him, but I’m not so sure. And this isn’t just about what happened today. Goodness knows, the scene Talah made was enough to annoy anyone. Kugah’s reaction did increase my concern though. We can barely understand what he’s saying, for goodness sake, how can we possibly know he isn’t going to turn on us when we least expect it?”
Amelie remembered the huge spurs and suppressed a shudder. If the alien turned on them, they would all be in trouble. “Why me? Surely there’s someone more qualified for this job?”
“Who? One of the mothers perhaps? Or a refugee from Zerris?”
“I was thinking about Molly, actually. She has more experience at this kind of thing.”
Tyris frowned, and ran a hand through his hair, before shaking his head. “I’m sure she’s knowledgeable, but Kugah isn’t just an alien life form. He’s sentient. I think a doctor is going to be better at assessing that than a biologist. And besides,” Tyris said frankly. “I trust your judgement.”
Amelie bit back a sigh. Tyris had a point. “What am I looking for?” she asked.
“Developing some form of communication with him would be useful,” Tyris said. “But most importantly, we need a thorough understanding of the creature’s biological makeup. It could be useful if there are any further problems.”
Despite his roundabout phrasing, his meaning was clear. “That’s why you asked me, isn’t it? You want me to look for any weaknesses we could exploit.” Amelie stopped walking, and stared at Tyris, her hands on her hips. Didn’t he remember that she was a doctor? Her job was to help people. “Maybe Molly would be better at this after all.”
“Molly doesn’t have any military training,” Tyris said flatly. “She wouldn’t understand. But you and I both do. If that alien threatens anyone else, I need a way to take him down, preferably without doing any permanent damage.”
She stared at him, the completely open expression on his face irritating her. Tyris always seemed to do the right thing. It was so easy for him. His choices were clear and he never seemed to experience any conflict over them.
If only it was that easy. If only she couldn’t see both sides of the argument.
Yes, Tyris had a responsibility to protect the people on this ship. They were under his care. But Amelie had a responsibility to her patients, whether they were human or alien. If she examined the alien, there was no way she could consider him anything but a patient.
Yet, he’d already shown the damage he could do without even trying. If he became a threat to anyone else on the ship…
“I’ll see what I can do,” she said gruffly. “But I can’t promise anything. Examining an alien isn’t something I’ve had any training for. No one expected to have to do it. After all this time, the Colonies had come to the conclusion we were alone in the galaxy.”
Tyris nodded. “Do what you can.”
Chapter 3
The knock at Kugah’s door was obviously a warning, not a question, since it hissed open almost before the sound had penetrated into the room. Kugah stood up as the two men came into the room. They been standing outside his door since the incident on the observation deck yesterday, he’d heard them moving around. He was pretty sure they were supposed to be guarding him. No one trusted him anymore.
He didn’t blame them.
Kerit had turned up last night with his dinner, and stayed for a while, looking glum, but he hadn’t said much.
The two men looked a little uncertain, but one of them waved him towards the door, indicating that they wanted him to follow them.
Kugah shrugged, and headed out the door after them. This time though, he resolved not to get angry, no matter how much anyone provoked him.
That was the plan anyway.
He had never been angry like this before the metamorphosis. He’d lived a normal life, spending a lot of time with his friends and family and working. His life had been calm and peaceful.
After the metamorphosis, well…
His stomach clenched and it was hard to stop his fists clenching as well. Even now, light years away from the Gokak, the memory of their smug confidence and the way they had belittled him and his beliefs at every turn still made him want to smash everything around him.
He shut those thoughts down as quickly as he could, before they could turn into action. They weren’t helping him stay calm. Instead, he focused on where they were going. They were heading away from the observation deck, and not to the shuttle bay. These corridors were new. He paid careful attention, noting every little detail.
The doors were further apart here, so not individual quarters. Storage rooms perhaps? Or training rooms.
One of the men pressed the button near a door and it slid open.
“Good, you’re here.” Though the voice was brisk and business-like, Kugah recognised it instantly. The woman from the observation deck. The one who had spoken gently to him. The one who had seemed alone, like he was.
She didn’t seem lonely here though. She seemed in her element.
Kugah forced himself to look away from her soft face and brown hair. He focused on the room, making himself concentrate on figuring out why they had brought him here.
This room was different to any he had seen on the spaceship so far, but in some ways, intimately familiar. It was filled with hard, shiny surfaces, although they were silver, not black. Machines and instruments, and cold, hard beds gave him further clues.
A science or medical room. His heart sank as he realised this meant the woman he had felt a connection to had to be a doctor or scientist.
He didn’t trust either.
She didn’t feel a connection to him. She wanted to study him.
Did she want to know how to protect her people from him, or how to make them like him?
Either way, he would not be part of it.
Kugah stopped in the doorway. A soft gasp of air let him know that one of the men had crashed into him, but he didn’t even feel the impact.
“I will not be part of this,” he said quietly, even though he knew they wouldn’t understand his words.
The woman’s head spun around, and she stared at him, her eyes wide. She held her hands out towards him, as though trying to placate him, saying words he couldn’t understand.
Damn this communication barrier. How could he make her realise that he wouldn’t be an experiment again?
He felt the anger rising, despite his best intentions. He fought it, trying his hardest to suppress the adrenaline flooding through him. The traitorous hormone tried to convince him he had to fight, that it was the only way to survive.
Kugah didn’t want to fight.
He didn’t want to hurt these people.
But he couldn’t bear to let anyone use him again. Not for any reason.
The memories flooding his mind caused a lo
w growl to form in his throat. The memory of the fear, panic, and hopelessness he’d felt when he’d lain in the Metamorphosis Device, feeling the change begin, threatened to overwhelm him. The fear threatened to let the anger out of the box he’d tried to trap it in.
He took some gulping breaths of air, but it felt stale and suffocating. It didn’t help. Nothing ever did. Not since the metamorphosis.
He couldn’t do this. He needed to get out of here.
He backed out of the room, ignoring the humans, and began to stride towards the shuttle bay where he had come on board, glad now that he had paid careful attention to his surroundings. Folly’s ship would be there as well. That ship had the capability to travel to any planet he wanted. It had an even better range than his own damaged ship. The humans couldn’t stop him taking it. They weren’t powerful enough.
So long as they hadn’t already removed the machine that created the wormhole. That fear sped his feet faster, even though a few minutes would make little difference at this point.
The guards raced alongside him, struggling to keep pace with his long strides. They made loud, unintelligible noises.
Kugah ignored them.
Anyone in the hallways moved quickly out of the way, flattening themselves against the walls. No one even attempted to stop him.
He didn’t need to fight them. He just had to ignore them. Everything would be okay as long as he didn’t let go of the anger. So long as he kept it locked inside him, where it raced around and around, hurting no one but himself.
It took only a few moments for him to reach the door to the shuttle bay. He paused for a second, staring at the ships inside. There was the small shuttle Kerit had flown down to the planet in, useless for anything but very short range. Beside it sat his own ship, jet black and as shiny as his own armour. The damage to the hull still made him wince. Only his genetically enhanced strength and regeneration had allowed him to survive that crash.
Then there was the weathered and makeshift ship that Kerit’s female had flown. In appearance, it was the least valuable of the three, and yet he had seen it form and enter a wormhole with his own eyes.
Scientists on his world had only dreamed of such technology.
It would take him anywhere he wanted to go. But to do so, he would have to leave his own ship, and the technology it contained, behind. The ship itself, he didn’t care about. The Gokak craft meant nothing to him. The Metamorphosis Device it contained, the machine the Gokak used for their enhanced evolution, was his one hope of ever returning to who he had been. His momentary hesitation allowed the humans to catch up to him.
“Kugah, stop!” the woman called out.
They were too close, he needed to keep moving. He stepped through the doorway, and almost ran into the woman.
How had she managed to get in front of him?
“Stop!” she said firmly, holding up her hand. Even though he didn’t understand the word, her meaning was clear.
Did she really think it would be that easy to stop him? Did she really think he was just going to sit there and let her poke and prod him? Rage almost blinded him.
He needed to get away, before he hurt someone.
He took a step forwards, expecting her to back away, as those he had passed in the hallway had done. Instead, she put a hand on his chest.
Her touch was as light as a breeze.
Instantly, the anger cooled. Kugah stopped in his tracks, a shiver running through him.
When the men had tried to stop him, he hadn’t felt a thing. His armour was designed to prevent any tactile sensations that might impede him in a battle. But sensors had been left for light touches, giving him information about the wind direction or the ground under his feet, to help him when he needed stealth.
Her touch was light enough that he could feel it.
If his eyes had been able to cry, he would have shed a tear. How many years had it been since he’d felt another sentient beings touch? He didn’t want to even try to remember.
He looked down at her upturned face, his sensors registering that her widened eyes indicated surprise, possibly fear. Through the contact with her skin, he could sense her heart beating.
He automatically calculated that she didn’t have the strength to actually prevent him from reaching the spaceship in front of him. She probably wouldn’t even try if he continued to push his way forwards.
The guards grip on his arms, though stronger than hers, wouldn’t be enough to stop him either.
Through all the information flooding in from his genetically enhanced senses, his own mind registered the brown colour of her eyes, staring intensely into his, reminding him of playing in the rich dirt on his father’s farm as a child. They spoke of the innocence he’d lost.
They were the first real connection he’d had to another thinking, feeling being since his metamorphosis.
He didn’t move, afraid of breaking the tenuous connection between them.
Behind him, the guards tugged on his arms, their angry voices breaking the moment, destroying his connection with the woman. He felt only a flicker of irritation, easily suppressed. All he wanted was to regain that connection with her.
She looked away from him, towards the other men, her face changing into an unpleasant expression. Her voice was sharp when she spoke to them, but they spoke back just as sharply.
He needed to stop them from trying to interfere, to bring the woman’s attention back to him. He didn’t know why, in fact, some part of his mind warned him not to, that the connection to her was dangerous.
That the last thing he wanted to do was return to her medical lab and be a test subject.
But somehow, he couldn’t believe that she would hurt him.
Any more than he would risk hurting her.
He didn’t want to hurt any of the humans, but somehow, the thought of hurting this particular one didn’t just cause a stab of guilt, it seized his heart and squeezed it mercilessly.
“Kugah grop,” he said quietly. His mouth twisted on the strange words. He couldn’t make the hissing sound the humans used. It was a struggle even to say his name the way Kerit said it. It sounded wrong, but the humans seemed to understand it better that way.
The guards didn’t stop their tugging.
The woman spoke sharply to them again, pointing to him, then to them. He couldn’t understand her words, other than the fact that she repeated his name, but this time it seemed to work. They released him and stepped back.
Kugah glanced at the spaceship again, but the thought of escaping had faded. He was probably making the biggest mistake he had made so far, but he couldn’t leave without finding out more about these people.
About her.
Even stronger than his scientific curiosity about the human race, was a very personal curiosity about this woman. It almost felt like she saw something more than his armour and spurs. Was there a chance she could see the man underneath the weapon?
Did he dare hope?
As he followed her back through the corridors, the two men trailing behind, he realised he wasn’t even sure what he was hoping for. All he knew was that staring into her eyes had evoked the first positive emotion he’d had in a long time.
Once they returned to the cold, sterile med bay though, he wavered in his resolve. These people may think that them finding a new home was more important than him, but if they thought they could push and prod him, then they might just discover that they’d be better off without him.
The woman said something unintelligible. Why did she keep trying? Surely she knew he couldn’t understand her? He looked towards her, and she waved at the bed.
Did she really think he was going to just lie down and let her… do whatever she wanted to do?
Her brown eyes looked into his, as though searching for something. She frowned. Not a frown of anger or even annoyance. At least, not at him. She could see that the lack of communication was a barrier as well as he could.
Then she held out the instrument in her hands. H
er words were slow and measured, and Kugah struggled to take them in.
It didn’t matter how slowly she spoke, her words were meaningless to him. Realising this, she broke off, and heaved a sigh, then muttered something under her breath.
She stared at him for a minute, then turned around and flipped a switch on one of the machines. Then she pulled at one of the cords, and pressed a small circle to her chest.
Immediately a low thumping filled the room.
For some reason, the sound was comforting. And he’d heard it somewhere before. He stared at the woman, and the instrument she held to her chest.
It was her. The sound matched the heartbeat he’d felt earlier, magnified by the machine.
The machine’s abilities weren’t that amazing. He’d worked with similar technology in a host of different circumstances. But for some reason, the sound it produced mesmerised him. He took a step towards her, then paused. What he really wanted to do was to put a hand on her chest, to hear the sound without the machinery in the way.
He didn’t think she’d be impressed.
She didn’t back away though, just took the instrument off her own chest, and held it out to him.
Her intention was clear. Kugah wavered. The machine seemed to just listen to his innards. He couldn’t see how it could harm him in any way, and she’d proved that by using it on herself. So it wasn’t that he was afraid she was trying to hurt him.
It was her motivations he questioned. Why did she want to find out more about him?
He had been a scientist, he understood about the driving need to know and discover. If that was what drove her, and there were plenty of reasons it could be, then he was more than happy to let her examine him.
But he couldn’t quite convince himself her motivation was purely scientific.
Objectively, he wouldn’t blame her if it wasn’t. He’d already proved he was a danger, a threat to her people. Any sane scientist would try to find out as much as they could about an alien as threatening as he was.
Torn between understanding her motivation, and not wanting to put himself at risk, he stared at her.
